Applied Biotechnology & Bioengineering

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Received: January 01, 1970 | Published: ,

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Mini review

Pragmatic Humanism (PH) rejects the idea of abstract core values! Human conclusions must be rooted in empirical science as claimed by British Empiricism since the 18. Century. An overall positivist synthesis must guide original on both individual and collective behavior.

Neuroeconomic Psychology (NeP) guides individual behavior based on the Neuroeconomic Model (NeM) which orders the Big5 tempers by risk-willingness, see Figure 1¹. Extraversion and Open-mindedness correlate positively with risk-willingness, while Consciousness, Agreeableness and Neuroticism correlate negatively with risk-willingness.

Figure 1 Neuroeconomic psychology (NeP).

Important individual consequences of NeP are:

The essence of a modern creative man prototyped as “Pilot-in-the-plane entrepreneur” is explained as an open-minded person with moderate risk-willingness maximizing
Relaxation exercises are identified as most relevant towards the epidemic of job-related
NeP simplifies individual sensi-training to the Big5

Further, the natural sciences have overcome the subjective aspect, but in behavioral disciplines, scientists are both observers and actors, with special subjective biases as Extraversion and Conscientiousness, see Table 1.¹

Value-of-thesis

Sample indication

accept Reject

True

Positivist knowledge Subjective Type 1 Error

Conscientiousness

False

Type 2 Error

Subjective extraversion Integrity

Table 1 Subjective positivist biases in behavioral economics

A study finds that fulfillment of the 17 UNSG can be reduced to the 3P (People, Planet and Prosperity). The prioritization of benefits to People and Prosperity are integrated by Health Technology Assessment (HTA). HTA can be expanded to universality (UTA) including the “Planet” (Environmental dimension), see Formula for universal technology assessment:

UTA = F (People, Planet, Prosperity) QALY

UTA determines the economic world order by the following empirical findings:

Ad “People": Epidemic stress has annual costs of 2% of GDP, 3 million deaths and another million disabilities. Loss of QALY is 100 million tripling by exponential growth to >300 million QALY 2050.

Ad “Planet”: The World Economic Forum (WEF) warns that global heating by natural

disasters 2050 cost $12.5 Trillion USD corresponding to losses of at least 2 billion QALY p.a. A recent macroeconomic study concludes that the climate damages are even worse, already accounting for 30% of the global GDP with an exponential growth.

Ad “Prosperity”: Life-Expectancy has redoubled by 200 years of economic growth and 2% growth in GDP increases QALY by 3 months. Actually a gain of 1.400 million QALY p.a. Special pollution of earth and water by modern fertilizers in agriculture is important, too.

¹1Larsen T. Pragmatic humanism - 10 Practical Guidelines. LBH. 2025;14(1):1–5.

Conclusion

A reinforcing negative marginal global growth by global heating before 2050 is identified. This is going to push a burden of debt on future generations. A CO₂Tariff on the polluter (ET) is recommended by economists towards pollutants like atmospheric CO₂, awarded the Nobel Prize. and confirmed by case studies. Calculations by the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate an effective ET should be 150-200 USD per ton CO₂ with a global gross budget of 3% of global GDP to reduce the atmospheric CO₂ to that before industrialization. However, atmospheric heating by CO₂ has no national borders, whereas a national ET loads the national competitiveness by exporting national jobs to other countries. An alternative - with at least the same incentive to green the economy - is a subsidy to alternatives to fossil energy at the same level (ES), but without loading national competitiveness:

ES must primarily be financed by taxpayers, however, an ET on companies/institutions is, too, going to be pushed-over on ordinary citizens.
The time profile of an ES is favourable to that of an ET, as the gross budget of an ES is starting from a low level and growing over time. To avoid ES becoming eternal, it must be limited to the expected life-time of the subsidized production facility. In contrast, a broad international ET would have a peak budget from the beginning and decline over time.

A pioneer step towards the alternative economic thinking by ES was taken by the Biden Administration planning how to make the US carbon neutral 2050, and China is already following the ES-line supporting a broad line of non-fossil energy products for instancenelectric cars. Also, ES is going to contribute to improving Western competition with China.

In summary, PH synthesizes a development beginning with Antique Humanism, revived in

the Renaissance, enabled by British Empiricism and completed by digital technology. Guest- Lectures have identified behavioral economists as a target group for dissemination of PH